Trespass by Pat Howard

This is the final version. Thanks for all the great feedback!

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BETA NOTES:

Okay, guys, the beta is ready. I'm just looking for general feedback at this point with the exception of major layout changes. There are two small problems I have to mention: the first is I am still working out the lighting. Eventually I want to use -gamma and -compensate for a brighter, friendlier vibe like Hipshot has in his maps, but right now I can't seem to get those params to work properly. My colors are all washed out and it looks horrible. I'll be looking into that issue. The second problem is the high tri-count. It's actually not nearly as bad as I expected -- 40k max, but I'm guessing this will still be too much for people on much older systems.

Looking forward to hearing what you all think of it.

Thanks,pat h

P.S. The teleporters I'm using now are temporary. I'd like to use the teleporter shader from Sinister but I'm not sure yet if it's possible to use it legally.

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Kara by Pat Howard

After watching Quantic Dream's short film, "Kara", I got inspired to take a little break from Hydra and create a new tourney layout. Gameplay-wise, I was inspired by Lost World, Toxicity, and Blood Run, in that order. I wanted to improve on my ability to make interesting connections between 3-4 rooms and create trick jumps by making lots of small changes in elevation. I also tried to incorporate more cover than in my previous maps. Note: Kara is just a working title.

I'm just looking for feedback on the gameplay at this point. I'd appreciate if anyone could find the time to chime in.

thanks! let me know what you think if you find some time to play a game

That's a really good/connective layout => ...could be attractive in the end. The only thing that I saw which seemed a bit risky, was the tele exit that comes from the teleporters down by the RA. You could watch someone enter that tele and nail them on the exit above ... it's so close too, would be easy to time out. Very cool map though.

thanks. i'm glad you liked the connectivity. at first i was worried about that low YA room only having two entrances, and i also felt like that middle junction with the diagonal staircase was just weird, but i think it worked out.

you know, you might be right about that tele. i would have thought it would have worked like this tele in Toxicity, but i failed to realize that part of the reason that tele works is it usually puts you further away from your opponent, not closer to him. my map's tele brings you from out of rocket/shaft range right into it. the one in Toxicity also has an exit to the left of it that you can sneak out of. i did want my RA pit to be a highly exploitable trap, but that tele might be a bit too weird.

the thing is, i'm having a hard time finding another place to put the destination. i guess it would have to be somewhere low in the LG room with the high YA. anywhere else and i make it too convenient for the player to run straight to the MH.

i just moved the tp destination over a bit, so you at least have to turn and reset your aim when the player comes out of it. plus the player can escape quickly out the side door into the next room.

it's still exploitable, but it is an RA trap after all.

Had a run through with 3 bots to 50 frags. Pretty fast map! The layout seems awkward somehow but that's probably just because there are no discerning features yet. The RA/Mega/RL are all way too close together I think. If you spawn properly, you can hit the RA, grab the RL, and fly around the corner to the MH and be stacked with 200 health/100 armor and a RL all in less than 5 seconds.

The RA as it stands is not a trap. A trap is one way in, one way out. There are 3 or 4 ways in and 2 ways out. You may consider moving it out of there entirely and putting the RL there. Then put the RA somewhere that is a lot harder to get to, like a ledge on a wall, up high, that you can only get to with a well-placed jump, and is in plain sight of everyone else. You have a 25H standing on a pillar above the RA, consider putting the RA on the wall adjacent to it, inset into a little alcove of sorts. Maybe move the 25H away from there as well.

What's the deal with the crates? This isn't Quake2. You can't do double-jumps. They just get in the way I think. I kept getting stuck on them. Granted, I haven't played Quake3 for probably a year, but still. I kept trying to double jump off them like Quake2 but it doesn't work and just ends up being annoying and ruins the flow of the game. Consider some other form of letting the player get up on those ledges, whether that is a sort of fragmented staircase of some sort, or an actual staircase. Too small of a distance for jump pads...

The RG feels odd in this map, but that may only be because you have every gun in there except the BFG. Consider removing the RG and moving the GL there. GL and SG are typically weapons that players who have just been killed quickly seek out so they have something better than a MG. (then again, this map is small enough that it may not matter much.) Hence it makes sense to kind of hide them away, like the RG is now. If you want to keep the RG, consider removing the PG or the LG.

I think there may be too much armor overall. The map is small enough that 2 YAs, 1RA, plus shards seems excessive. Consider ditching 1 YA, and moving the shards to an area of "retreat", like where I suggested moving the GL to replace the RG (or just move them down by the RG.)

Just my $0.02! A fun map either way.

hey, mrd, thanks for the feedback. i'm glad you dusted off the old quake cd . i know it's just your two cents and i appreciate it. i'll just respond to a few things.

what you said about the armor scooping may be true in FFA with bots, but in duel play with two decent human players it should be almost impossible to grab MH/RA/YA upon spawning.

if i was gonna remove a weapon it would probably be the SG. i will give that some thought. the rail seems a bit weak in FFA but i'm sure it will be used in duels. the other weapons seem weirdly strong, like PG and grenades seem more effective than usual.

i think the crates are just too big right now. double-jumping off crates works great in Toxicity/Evolution, imo, which is what I was trying to recreate here. i'll work on that.

it's funny, so many people tell me there is too much armor in my maps, and yet every duel map on QL at the moment has at least four armors, some of which are smaller than this map. i don't quite get it, maybe FFA players like less. in my last map i removed a YA and replaced it with a battlesuit in FFA mode and that seemed to work well. i could try that with a regen at the low YA here.

i still haven't incorporated a jump to an armor on a risky ledge in any of my maps, though i've always meant to! they are great in small, fast maps like mine because they make armor running take a lot more time. the MH and RA in my map are both what i call isolation items; they force you to be exposed in the open while you grab them and it takes a moment before you can get back to safety. the RA might work well on a ledge but i am kind of stuck with having the item in that room on the ground level, otherwise there would be no reason to go down there. i think it's pretty vulnerable as is.

thanks again.pat

Ah, there is no dusting of CDs. D:\quake3 is about the oldest folder on this entire computer. I never uninstall it, just rarely run it.

As for FFA -- fair enough... I didn't read the title properly. As a tourney map it is definitely very different. Unfortunately I don't know anyone to play a real 1vs1 match with so bots are the best I can do. Knowing that, the game dynamic is likely quite a bit different.

Looking forward to the next iteration.

I must say that one looks quite pretty and it's game flow is nice smooth, the crates help to get on upper floors and the column is pretty good strafe jump point. I haven't played with bots yet, but I'm gonna to say I'm really looking forward this release

@czghost: thanks!

@porto: sweet, i'll update the link to the newest version.

I played through your map and I must say it's sometimes pretty fast, but there were also times I would just be walking around not seeing anyone.In the beginning I found myself walking in circles a bit, but that changed after I learned the layout of the map a bit better (this was probably also caused by the lack of ornaments and such). Overall I really liked your map. I put some screens in the spoiler because this post would otherwise be too big.

Maybe you should create a spot where you can overview this better:

I really like this hallway:..and this place to shoot down:

The only thing that bothered me are these crates:I got stuck once in those crates:

Hey!I played your map a few times aaand:Its cool fun! Its pretty fast Action in there, in german: "Da gehts ab"

Feedback so far:-Im always crashing against this wall

first shots! the theme i am going with here is an old abandoned factory being overgrown by nature. i was inspired by helder pinto's post apocalyptic scene, and also the photography on dubtown.de, particularly this album of an old ammonia factory. i'm thinking about naming the map "trespass", because i want to evoke a feeling that the players shouldn't be snooping around in this abandoned, possibly dangerous place.

thoughts? feedback welcome on anything.

p.s. although i've heavily edited the textures, the majority of these assets were created by hipshot, sock, and phantazm11, so big thanks goes to them. most of the rest were created by using photosources from cgtextures.com

Looks amazing! Looking at the Shots makes me feel soo noobish

thanks

@andyw & andehx: don't feel noobish! my first official map looked like this, and that was after years of fiddling around with the editor as a little kid. if my work has gotten any better over the years, i owe it to the peeps on this forum who have always given me the constructive feedback to keep improving.

a couple tips:1.) only use hd assets created by the best artists in the community, e.g. hipshot, sock, phantazm11, cityy, or any others you like.2.) work with concept art. i always heard people say this was the key to good environments, but i never believed it until i tried.

@andyw & andehx: don't feel noobish! my first official map looked like this

Which is basically as good as my last map looks

looks like i have a technical nightmare ahead of me. r_speeds in this room alone are 30k. i'd imagine the finished map will hover around 50k, and i don't even want to think about what the spikes will be. 75k?

i guess it would be pretty easy to release a version of the map without the trees if needed, but hopefully most people have nice enough computers these days to handle them. i'd hate to see this keep people from enjoying the map though.

Pat Howard wrote:

i guess it would be pretty easy to release a version of the map without the trees if needed, but hopefully most people have nice enough computers these days to handle them. i'd hate to see this keep people from enjoying the map though.

IMO 50K should be fine with today's hardware. If there are folks out there who still have not updated their hardware then they cannot be helped. Mine is 5 years old... and if I can run it so should anyone else.

The "look" outside the windows made me pause thinking... "hmmm... love it why did I avoid doing that though"... well because of the tris counts... you normally can have one large tree by Sock per area that cannot be seen from other areas with such a tree... did that for the three arenas in AEdm7...

AEon wrote:

Pat Howard wrote:

i guess it would be pretty easy to release a version of the map without the trees if needed, but hopefully most people have nice enough computers these days to handle them. i'd hate to see this keep people from enjoying the map though.

IMO 50K should be fine with today's hardware. If there are folks out there who still have not updated their hardware then they cannot be helped. Mine is 5 years old... and if I can run it so should anyone else.

The "look" outside the windows made me pause thinking... "hmmm... love it why did I avoid doing that though"... well because of the tris counts... you normally can have one large tree by Sock per area that cannot be seen from other areas with such a tree... did that for the three arenas in AEdm7...

Yeah this. If anyone out there is still running on hardware that can't handle todays maps, then its just tough. Cater to the majority, and the majority these days will have systems that can easily handle anything the Quake 3 engine throws at it.

yeah, i think 50k is fine but that should be close to the max. i think even with today's hardware 75k might be pushing it. eventually what i am going to do is turn the metal frames of the windows into alpha channel textures. this would save tons of tris and the difference probably wouldn't even be noticeable from a distance.

@czghost: sorry, but it's not ready yet. these things take time

Once you reach a certain point, it's the engine that can't handle it, not today's hardware. Some maps will probably run like shit on a super-computer. 50k is nowhere near that limit though. Should be fine.

Just remembered that AEblocks was, without caulk hull, around 50-60K then with the hull around 30-35K... so I still should be on the "good" side for now... and can add more greenery... should I get around to it again.